When it comes to helping your clients achieve long-term transformation, is ‘Coaching’ alone enough? Or is ‘Education’ the missing ingredient to drive lasting positive change?
In this article, we’ll show you how it’s not an either-or situation with a proven balanced approach that will transform your client sessions and elevate your impact.
Keep an open mind, and let’s dive right in!
Decoding Pure Coaching and Pure Advice
Before we jump into the coaching vs. education discourse, let’s revisit some foundational concepts. The International Coaching Federation (ICF) defines coaching as:
"Partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximise their personal and professional potential."
Note that in this definition, there is no ‘advising’, no ‘training’, and no ‘educating’ the client.
This is called Pure Coaching. It does not involve giving answers, solutions, or advice. It is about empowering choice, even if that choice is to NOT change!
On the flip side, there’s Pure Advice: It involves sharing your knowledge directly with clients in the form of solutions, suggestions, and recommendations.
The effectiveness of pure advice can be limited. Despite the sound science or practicality behind it, telling clients what to do might not result in any action-taking.
Should you then abandon giving any advice? No — you just need to hit the ‘sweet spot’. Let’s see what that is!
Navigating the 4 Coaching Styles: What’s the Ideal Approach?
There are 4 styles of Health Coaching that every Coach Practitioner or professional using coaching techniques must be aware of. We discuss this in detail with our THSA Advice-Coaching Axis™ inside our Behaviour Coaching Skills Training.
Since this sets important context for our topic at hand, here’s a quick glimpse and explanation of the different coaching styles.
Directive Coaching Style:
- Coach provides clear advice and sets the session agenda.
- Coach shares knowledge and directs the client on what to do and how to do it.
- Client’s motivation might be lower due to excessive “telling” from the coach.
Non-Directive Coaching Style (Also known as Pure Coaching):
- Client determines the session’s focus and agenda.
- Sessions are built on intelligent listening and active enquiry, without judgement or advice.
- Draws from the insights and creativity of the coachee, and is highly energising for them.
Situational Coaching Style (The ideal style for health and wellness coaching)
- Strikes a fine balance between Directive and Non-Directive styles.
- Client and/or coach set the coaching agenda (for the whole session or a subset of the session).
- Preferable in clinical health settings (e.g. patient needs objective information/corrections of any significant errors that increase health risk).
Beyond Coaching: The Role of Education in Client Sessions
Now, you might be wondering, “Where does education fit into the client-advisor dynamic?”
Keeping the fundamentals in mind, let’s jump into the crux of our ‘Coaching-Education’ discussion and see what exactly qualifies as ‘education’ in a nutrition client coaching session:
- Explaining coaching tools, strategies, or methodologies, like mind maps or the ‘Traffic Lights’ method
- Presenting and simplifying various assessments, strategy tools, implementation aids, and trackers
- Discussing medical resources, such as websites, books, workshops, and groups
- Identifying health-related red flags, such as adverse effects or contraindications, when appropriate
- Proposing medical referrals or follow-ups
- Mentioning evidence-based information or advice (health-related, social, psychological, methodological, etc.) ONLY if certified to do so (e.g. gut health nutrition if certified as a nutrition professional in the relevant field)
There’s no denying that education can be valuable in some coaching sessions and is also often requested by clients.
BUT, its dominance can hinder the client’s active engagement, empowerment, and personalised growth. Which is why, balance is key!
Striking a Coaching-Education Balance: The Golden 75-25 Rule
When you balance coaching and education, you unlock meaningful and long-lasting transformation for your clients.
To help you achieve that, our subject-matter experts at The Health Sciences Academy created a powerful approach you can apply in your client sessions.
This 75-25 rule is a powerful compass for your client sessions. Here’s how you can go about it:
- Initially, your focus should be on mastering pure coaching. This is where you engage in non-directive conversations with clients, letting them discover their own solutions, while you participate in intelligent listening and active enquiry, without judgement or advice.
- As you progress, aim for at least 75% of your session time dedicated to coaching. Allow clients to explore their thoughts and strengths for lasting change. Enable them to come up with their own goals and action plans, but if you see that the behaviour itself is potentially risky health-wise, then either advisory intervention or referral is needed.
- The remaining 25% can be used for education, where you provide insights and information strategically. Remember, this is a limit, not a target. For instance, if you have a 20-minute session, limit education to a maximum of 5 minutes — ensuring the bulk of your time is spent on coaching.
- Keep in mind that quality trumps session duration. While 20 minutes is the standard duration for a health and wellness coaching session, as you gain competence, you might find yourself extending sessions for greater impact.
With this knowledge of when to coach, when to educate, and when to balance the two — you hold the keys to empowering lasting change.
So naturally, we’re curious — how do you plan on applying this knowledge? Share your response in the comments below.
Remember, your insights might spark a breakthrough for someone else. So, let’s continue the dialogue and inspire each other!
About the Level 6 Behaviour Coaching Skills Training
While your advice might help many health and nutrition clients improve their quality of life, it’s not an easy job — especially when working with those struggling to stick to a plan.
That’s where the Level 6 video-based Behaviour Coaching Skills Training can give you a competitive advantage.
Accredited by the International Coach Federation (ICF) for up to 29 hours of Continuing Coach Education (CCE), this training draws from Behaviour Change research, Health Psychology, Positive Psychology, and Lifestyle Medicine research.
And it’s packed with practical coaching techniques taught and demonstrated by, Alejandra “Alex” Ruani, Chief Science Educator, Doctoral Researcher who’s an expert National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach.
